The bacá (baka in Haitian Kreyol) — spirit demons that can transform themselves and humans into animals — are present throughout the island of Hispaniola, but interpreted differently in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, says UCLA historian Robin Derby about her current research.

At a recent Center for India and South Asia event, Ronak Kapadia examined visual art that evokes the experience of prisoners of war and detainees who have experienced torture and other physical abuse in U.S. military detention sites around the world.

At a recent CMED lecture, officials from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) described what the breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process looks like on the ground and their foundation's work in the Palestinian Territories and the MENA region.

At the upcoming Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies' 6th “Israel in 3D” conference, participants from Israel and the United States will explore connections between the countries beyond the political sphere.

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Faculty in the News

Kal Raustiala, director of the Burkle Center for International Relations, participated in a Zócalo Public Square/ UCLA Downtown LA event on Jan. 30, 2019. “Trump has a great affection for authoritarians around the world...,” said Raustiala. "But there are restraints on that power." Read the full story on the Zócalo website.

Jan 25., 2019. Writing in Common Dreams with Renee Luthra and Thomas Soehl, Roger Waldinger (director, Center for the Study of International Migration) argues, "In impeding naturalization, the Trump administration is forsaking long-term benefits for arguable short-term gains, and policymakers shouldn't play along. As our work shows, the United States would do better if it kept with the American tradition of naturalization..."

Jan. 12, 2019. "There is no need for doubtful references to history, it's the present and the future of our democracy which the gilets jaunes movement is questioning," writes Center for European & Russian Studies Laure Murat in the French newspaper Liberation. (In French)

Nov. 12, 2018. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study showing 15 percent of babies exposed to Zika in utero in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, developed severe abnormalities. The collaborative research study was co-authored by Nielsen, former director of Center for Brazilian Studies, and a team of M.D.s and Ph.Ds. from Brazil and the United States.

Dec. 7, 2018. Will the U.S.-China trade war and planned U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement reduce China's incentives to implement air emissions controls? As cited in the New York Times, Alex Wang of the UCLA School of Law observes, “It takes the pressure off of greater ambition and faster action. If you're coming from the perspective that we're already way behind, then the current dynamic is bad.”